"I've done a lot of things in my life I ain't too proud of, and the things I am proud of are disgusting." - Mo Szyslak from The Simpsons for a nobody like me the schwager thing sounds like a big deal.
This evades the fact that Steve Cohen, Druckenmiller, Lescarbeau... etc don't discuss their strategies with anyone anyways.
I have Robbin's tapes....and he mentions it in detail. At one point JWH couldn't even go to his office, he was so bummed-out. And no, it WAS for trading issues....specifically his fund performance. Every trade was turning to mush....and driving him crazy.
interesting. does robbins mention JWH by name, or just say "billion dollar money manager" or something like that?? surf
I would have to agree with psytrade. I would think that most notable traders would be reluctant to openly discuss strategies that they are currently employing in any meaningful detail. My guess is that such topics are best approached tangentially by a writer when interviewing a trader. Personally, I hold the Schwager Wizard books in some regard. For the most part, the only people I am aware of who would openly and publicly discuss strategy in any meaningful detail are vendors. And that's a big caveat emptor, good buddy.
Don't ever lose that sense of humor. (You are kidding, right? I can never be sure on these boards. ) Personally, I think Jack's true identity is more closely aligned with: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/toys/...k31ao2s553nr2uh4553et1pz6cIBzxECL2AqYRPlFzCY=
Most of the trader's Schwager interviewed in the first 2 books fell into two camps. Trend followers (Dennis, Seykota, Eckhardt, Hite) or quasi swing/scalpers (Jones, McKay, Gelber, Baldwin). Only CRT (Ritchie) resemble the modern "trader." There were really no "rules" for the trend traders to discuss, eh? Load up on the right side of a trend and get rich, load up on the top of a trading range and get chopped. Simple. Today's fund manager is much shadier. He's a leveraged premium seller ala' vic. Or a leveraged carry-trade artist. Or a leveraged yield curve monkey. Or a race the tape on not yet quite public news SAC. Or a load up the order book derivatives bot. The guy's doing those trades ain't talking. And in all honesty what could they really say that would be insightful, entertaining or reproducible for the general public. Here's our interview with Sergio, "Serge when did you first program your auto-spreader to buy the cheapest to deliver 2 year when the green eurodollar strip goes bid?" Exciting stuff, lol. There's no more secrets to speculation than there are secrets to poker. After a while there's rules that are based on nothing more than rough probabilities. Sometimes your gut may tell you to fade those rules. Position sizing, discipline, diversification, blah, blah. We should all know what it takes. The application is another story. Many in Schwager's books fell on hard times later. It happens. Randomness giveth and taketh. Actually that should be the PRIMARY nugget gained......
Do you really think that most of the traders interviewed were that technically savvy? I recall there were some traders who focused primarily on fundamentals, however, as I recall (and it has been some years since I had read the books), the technically oriented traders did not all uniformly come across as overly sophisticated. Intelligent, smart and lucky, to be sure. But I got the impression (to the best of my recollection), that most of them employed sound, basic trading principles. Perhaps they were downplaying? I know that the devil is in the details, but I didn't really think that there are that many books out there on those details for the "smart" guys. If there are, could you please direct me to them? I'm not all that smart, but I can fake it for stretches at a time. The "bio/color/human-interest" stuff is not without merit. Trading is a lonely business, especially for those who trade from home. Reading how notably successful traders have dealt with hardship as well as success as they travelled up the learning curve provides good context that might not otherwise be available for isolated traders. There are other useful tidbits, but I won't pretend that I learned to trade using Schwager's Wizard books (or any other books, for that matter). Once again, could you please advise what you think the smart guys are reading? I'm not being facetious.